Humility

“From then on, that disciple took her into his own home.” (John 19:27).

Modern Crucifixion (Sandra Bowden)

What is LOVE?  Perfect Love?

Well, Perfect Love is Perfect Humility.

It is perfect giving.

Christ is the embodiment of Perfect Love.  His Mother loved perfectly according to the Will of the Father – and it is for this reason that she has been entrusted to be the mother of us all – given to us as our Mother with Christ’s dying words on the Cross.

This is perfect love.  You see, when Christ died on the Cross He was demonstrating perfect Love.  Not once did He swear or cry out in protest.  Instead, He bore the force of our sins for LOVE of us.  He bore them on His Holy Body.  His perfect chastity was assaulted by the stripping of His garments.  He was displayed as naked and alone on that Cross for people to ogle and pass by.

While the Son of Man died, people ogled and turned away…  While His mother stood in silence at the Foot of the Cross, people passed by as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  Perhaps they turned their heads away – disturbed by the brutality of what they were seeing?  Perhaps they looked right at Him but failed to see the Humanity and Dignity in that Perfect Soul – seeing instead a mere spectacle?  Perhaps they shrugged their shoulders and told themselves that they were best to stay out of the whole messy affair lest they too be implicated – somehow – in the execution of an apparent criminal?

Perhaps I am them and they are me?  For I have done all of these things with perfect love…

I have ogled my Beloved when I should have contemplated His Divine Majesty and Perfect Dignity.  I have looked away from my Beloved when I should have turned towards Him.  I have passed by and remained at times disturbed and at other times undisturbed by what I have seen.  And I have thought to myself that I should stay out of the messiness of Christianity, where it was easier to stay silent then it was to speak out…

And meanwhile, the Blessed Virgin submitted with humility in trading her Parenthood of the Divine to parent sinners like me…  And, unlike Saint John, I have not taken the Blessed Virgin into the home of my soul.  I have kept her away and called her in when I am stuck or desperate.  Refusing to provide a place for her…

“When Jesus saw his mother and his favourite disciple with her, he said to his mother, ‘This man is now your son.’  Then he said to the disciple, ‘She is now your mother.’ From then on, that disciple took her into his own home.” (John 19:26-27).

Inside every Church is a Tabernacle.  And inside each of those Tabernacles is God – God Himself.  He waits inside an empty Church, inside an Empty Box, just for me to pass by.  He stays there in perpetual and perfect patience.  He does not stand up and walk away.  He does not divert His attention.  He does not do something else while I avoid Him or look away.  He stays quietly and silently waiting for me to pop in for a moment.  He stays silently waiting for me to concentrate for a moment.  And I pass by – without even thinking about it very much at all. 

Poor God.  Poor poor God.

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.